Week #17: Back from Camp NaNoWriMo

Yep, I was at Camp NaNoWriMo this April. My target was 25,000 words. I managed about 18,000. Not bad, eh?

This year at Camp NaNo, I was attempting to juggle two writing projects. The first I won’t mention out of shame. The other was a novel I’ve had in mind since about the middle of last year and wanted to make use of the NaNoWriMo model to vomit the words out on page and have at least a basic first draft ready.

So exactly how successful was NaNo for me? Even though I didn’t meet my target word count (mainly because a lot of the writing was actually revising what I’d already written after a change in course presented itself in my story line), I would say that it was a great success. It wasn’t all about how much or what I wrote. What I’m happiest about is that it forced me to hammer in a writing routine in my usually pretty chaotic life (primarily due to my inability to manage time; otherwise, it’s a pretty laidback existence), thanks to which I managed to finish writing one book and work out a serious change in the direction of the plot in the other.

The other thing that the month of April and Camp NaNo did for me was put me on a “writer’s high” for much of the month. That feeling of really having got your teeth nicely in a plot was something I’d been missing for over a year. So, I have to admit, it’s done wonders for my confidence. 🙂